The expansion of a 25-year-old agreement will bring up to 100 doctoral students from Mexico to the UA next fall, officials said.

The Graduate College and Mexico's Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia (Conacyt) agreed to jointly pay for up to 100 Mexican doctoral students to study at the UA, said Maria Teresa Velez, associate dean of the Graduate College.

In doing so, the university expects to advance its research and the diversity on campus, Velez said. [Read article]

Former Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky discussed yesterday how humans relate to one another and how our sadness derives from a desire to be challenged.

More than 300 people attended his lecture, "Sadness and Exaltation," in the North Ballroom in the Student Union Memorial Center. The lecture emphasized how people have a general desire to be challenged by others.

This trait is not a factor of adolescence, Pinsky said, as it can be seen in people of all ages. [Read article]

Phoenix-area pop-punk band The Format will take the Centennial Hall stage tonight. With more than 1,600 tickets sold, student leaders said they're hopeful the remaining tickets will be bought to fill up the auditorium.

General public and student tickets have been on sale since mid-October for $10, and there are still about 800 tickets left to fill the 2,400-seat venue, said Ryan Patterson, special events coordinator for the Associated Students of the University of Arizona. [Read article]

Gov. Janet Napolitano could decide by next week which of the three nonvoting student regent finalists will fill the vacant position.

The nonvoting student regent seat on the Arizona Board of Regents has been empty since Sept. 29, when Kolby Granville, a third-year Arizona State University law student, resigned two months into his two-year term.

Since then, a search committee has interviewed 18 applicants from ASU and referred three to the governor, who plans to begin interviews this week before making the final pick, said Fernando Ascencio, an Arizona Students' Association director and the UA representative on the committee. [Read article]

The UA should wait before allowing researchers to change the genetic makeup of crops, a lecturer said, because more research needs to be done on the long-term health risks these foods may have.

Brian Tokar, the director of the Biotechnology Project at the Institute for Social Ecology, spoke about how genetically altered food lacks adequate research and is supported by big corporations that produce crop pesticides, in last night's speech "Gene Traders: Biotechnology, Globalization and the Future of our Food." [Read article]

Arizona may not be proud of its never-ending, blistering heat or lack of funding for education, but one thing it can boast about is the huge success of local bands like Jimmy Eat World and The Format. Nate Ruess, lead singer for The Format, spoke with the Arizona Daily Wildcat before the performance tonight in Centennial Hall about where he thinks tuition money goes and why talking in code is key to the band's success. [Read article]

2 Democrats win City Council seats in landslide victories

Two Democratic City Council candidates ousted Republican incumbents last night in Tucson's general election. Of Tucson's 248,777 registered voters, 21.64 percent of votes, or 53,839, were tallied by press time.

Karin Uhlich, the Democratic candidate for Ward 3, defeated incumbent Republican Kathleen Dunbar after gaining 61.25 percent of the vote. [Read article]

Things you've always never wanted to know